Although usually given on special occasions such as birthdays, Christmas or other holidays, a greeting card, which comprises an illustrated piece of card or high quality paper featuring an expression of friendship or other sentiment, may also be sent to convey thanks or express other feelings. Many different styles and designs for greeting cards have been developed over the years and can range from the ordinary to the inspirational. Some designs seek to heighten the appeal and presentation by offering some mechanical movement inside the card itself. For example, some greeting cards may include a pop-up element that, when opened, folds out into a three-dimensional figure. Additionally, some cards available on the market can be assembled into various ornamental objects. Still other techniques have been used by card makers to enhance the card's ability to convey a particular meaning or feeling through the card's design.
While card designers have made attempts at incorporating pop-up elements, paper folding, cut-outs, and assembling techniques to improve the appeal of greeting cards, these attempts have had their drawbacks. Expense can be a limiting factor. Fancy or intricate card designs may require expensive materials and/or special treatment and, hence, increased costs due to limited production runs. Therefore, cards with fancy or intricate designs may not be cost feasible for greeting card manufacturers. Also, because of the geometry behind how pop-up elements are raised when the greeting card is opened, conventional pop-greeting cards are limited in the location in which said pop-up elements can be placed on the greeting card. This restricts the creative process for card designers and can lead to greeting cards that are not as appealing to consumers. Further, because of the mechanical requirements behind how pop-up elements are raised when the greeting card is opened, conventional pop-up greeting cards require multiple pieces of paper to form the base for the greeting card. This increases costs in manufacturing the pop-up greeting card, increases the complexity of the greeting card and limits the ability of the card designers to control the materials used to make the greeting card. Additionally, conventional pop-up cards often use string to mechanically raise pop-up elements when the greeting card is opened. Again, this increases costs and complexity of the pop-up greeting card, and therefore limits the ability to make the greeting card.
Therefore, a need exists to overcome the problems with the prior art as discussed above, and particularly for a more efficient way of designing and manufacturing pop-up greeting cards in a manner that is appealing to the consumer.